


The Coltrane Files

by TS_Blue



Category: The Dukes of Hazzard (TV), The Dukes of Hazzard - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-07-21
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3907657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TS_Blue/pseuds/TS_Blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And then one day it finally happened – there were many who wondered why it took so long and others who figured it would never come to pass – Rosco Coltrane didn’t show up at the Hazzard County Administration Building at his usual late-morning arrival time. A story told through Hazzard County Sheriff's Department incident reports.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't a story in the traditional sense, with a beginning, a middle and an end. Then again, it sort of is. It's the story of Rosco, but then again it's the story of the Duke family and their friends. It isn't, and is, a lot of things.
> 
> I hope that one of the things it turns out to be is accessible. If it's too difficult to read because of the format, let me know and I'll find a way to make it easier.

And then one day it finally happened – there were many who wondered why it took so long and others who figured it would never come to pass – Rosco Coltrane didn’t show up at the Hazzard County Administration Building at his usual late-morning arrival time. Millie Tillingham got sent by his house on her lunch hour to be sure he was all right.  She found him sitting on his porch swing with his latest basset hound, Dash (who was actually a dachshund, but there was no telling that to Rosco), resting faithfully under one knobby, stroking hand. Millie asked if he was all right and got gibberish for a reply, which told her he was as fine as he’d ever been. Some of the words that went by scolded her for infringing on a man’s day off, and some of them seemed to promise that he’d be back tomorrow.

But he never made it in the next day or the one after that. Nothing was wrong with him – he could be found fishing (more like wading and otherwise getting muddy from the nails in his toes up to the fluffy whiteness of his hair) or walking the one paved sidewalk in town, scolding little children and offering to cuff and stuff them in giggling delight – and, for that matter, there was no real good reason he needed to show up at the Administration Building at all. He hadn’t officially been sheriff or commissioner in more than five years, but the thing was, he kept right on marching into the place like he didn’t know that he’d been unelected to his position. Sitting at that same desk that had always been his and handing out orders sandwiched between insults, both of which got more or less ignored. No one had the heart to run him off, so he kept coming in until that day that he didn’t.

Then it was a week that he didn’t, then a month. Somewhere around summer’s hottest days everyone in the county had to admit to themselves that Rosco P. Coltrane had finally retired, in his own time and in his own way. No one would have had it happen any differently.

Except maybe Minnie Tillingham, who had gotten herself hired into the newly-formed and updated Hazzard County Sheriff’s Office in 2005, as the department’s first official, full-time dispatcher. Which meant she also made the coffee, typed the reports and otherwise did the unwanted chores, because Hazzard had changed, but not all that much. And it was Minnie who got assigned to clean out old Rosco’s desk.

Most of what she found was immediately disposed of – nearly fossilized banana peels and pens with their tops chewed up, not to mention the odd dog treat. But once she’d done away with the detritus of about forty years spent sitting at the same desk, Minnie dug down to the scarred wood of the bottom, left drawer and found a manila file folder. Or, well, it had probably been manila once. Now it was brown and crumbling away at the corners.

Inside were a slew of incident reports from years gone by; artifacts of a time that her aunt, Mabel Tillingham, probably remembered, though Minnie herself had only heard tales, most of them squeezed in between ijits and wijjits. She looked at the papers, sequenced them in date order, and showed them to the current sheriff and the deputies, none of whom were named Hogg, Coltrane or Strate. The consensus was that they were useless, but official.  As such they belonged the basement, filed away with all the other reports from a time before computers came along and stored every note a cop ever made on a chip so small that no one even knew what it looked like. Minnie nodded her head, said her "yes, sirs," then took that file folder and put it right back where she’d found it.

Though everyone knew what she’d done, no one reprimanded her.  Maybe because they all knew she hated the basement, full of mice as it was, or maybe because they weren’t any more eager to seal away the last of the past than anyone else in town. To this day they are in that drawer, in that desk that stays empty and for the most part untouched. Except, that is, when Minnie is alone in the office on a slow day. Then she pulls them out, looks for one she hasn’t seen in a while, and reads it over. Lets her mind fill with bright-colored images of a time when cars were fast but people took their time, said hello, how do you do, and did you hear what happened in town this past weekend…

 

 


	2. The Early Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter predates the series, from a time when the Duke kids were young and Jesse and his wife, Lavinia, were raising them. Goes to show that once upon a time, Rosco kind of liked those little brats...

 

 

 

 


	3. Terrible Teens Part 1: Luke Duke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And then those kids started to grow up. This is Luke, a little big for his britches...

 

* * *

 

 


	4. The Terrible Teens, Part 2: Bo Duke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is Bo, at that awkward age when his body has halfway grown up, but his best friend (Luke) has been taken from him by the Marines.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 


	5. The Terrible Twenties: Luke's Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still pre-series here, but those boys are getting just as troublesome as they'd be later on. There is a purpose to what they do in these incidents, but of course, Rosco doesn't know that. (Nothing like distracting the law while moonshine is delivered from here to there...)

 

* * *

 

 

 


	6. A New Order

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a time of turmoil for Rosco, and one in which he gets no respect. Not from his new boss and not from other branches of law enforcement.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	7. Stolen Glory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An important event in the lives of the Dukes, and in Rosco's life, as well.


	8. Cat and Mouse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rosco's surveilling the Dukes on Boss's orders, but they're not being very cooperative. They thoughtlessly insist on going about their business without making it easy for Rosco to see what they are really up to. Still pre-series.


	9. Thumbing Their Noses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we're into the time-frame of the series. Relevant canon: _High Octane, The Big Heist, Deputy Dukes_ , and _The Ghost of General Lee_.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	10. Dukes and Dipsticks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moving forward in the series, Enos has gone off to Los Angeles, leaving Rosco to deal with Cletus as a deputy. Relevant canon: _The Return of Hughie Hogg_ and... I'm sure the second one came from some episode, but I can no longer recall which one it might have been. (Any of them from season three or four, undoubtedly.)

 

* * *

 

 


	11. Welcome Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boys have been off to NASCAR (we shall not speak of the time when they were away) and returned to find themselves being surveilled by Rosco all over again. Relevant canon: _Big Brothers, Duke_.

 


	12. Dukes' Revenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dukes have been harassed by Rosco and Boss for years. Here in a split second, Luke comes up with a plan that will save Daisy and Lulu, and will also make Rosco and Boss pay for their annoying ways. Relevant canon: _Targets: Daisy and Lulu_.

 


	13. Particularly Unusual Unusual Occurrences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some episodes... shouldn't. But they did. And Rosco (and Enos, returned from LA) would have had to write about those, too. Relevant Canon: _Welcome, Waylon Jennings_ and (shudder) _Strange Visitor to Hazzard_.

 

* * *

 

 


	14. Daisy's Beau

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're beyond the series now, starting to build the canon that we would see in the reunion movies. (I might not have loved them, but they did provide interesting material for Rosco -- and Enos.)

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


	15. Changes, Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, post-series, pre-reunion movies. Just a chance to show what Hazzard looked like in those sad years.

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 


	16. The Late Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here it ends. Relevant canon (such as it is): the two reunion movies. (And sweet Rosco -- it wasn't easy to let you go.)

 

* * *

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 


End file.
